Pakistan says border post spat resolved

ISLAMABADA (PAN): Pakistan has promised to continue maintaining a “cooperative approach” to Afghanistan, despite testy exchanges between the neighbours on issues of Kabul-led reconciliation and recent border skirmishes.

“Pakistan is in regular contact with Afghan authorities, including military-to-military contact,” a foreign ministry spokesman told a regular weekly media briefing in Islamabad on Thursday.

The border post spat had been resolved, Foreign Office spokesman Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry said, when asked about the tension fuelled by recent clashes at the Durand Line in the Goshta district of eastern Nangarhar province.

An Afghan border police official was killed in the clash, which has touched off angry anti-Pakistan protests across the country. Afghan officials have accused the Pakistan Army of unilaterally constructing installations on this side of the frontier.

Chaudhry said Pakistan had long been stressing the need for effective border management to interdict “undesirable cross-border activity”. However, he did not elaborate on the management mechanism.